“Skins” recap (4.08) Naomily, A History

Creedence Clearwater called. He called Thomas Tomone and he said, “There’s an unhinged bat-murderer on the loose, and there’s no rhyme or reason to his shenanigans, no physical improbability to hold him down. You better run, Thomo. You better run through the jungle.”

So Thomo takes off out his front door and he runs and runs, as fast as his legs will carry him — down the street, through the city; he turns left at the park and skips to the track and starts running in circles (not the brightest idea when you’re trying to evade homicide, I don’t think), and then he stops sprinting and picks up a rope and starts … jumping it.

False alarm, everyone! False alarm! Thomas is just out for some exercise!

Also up for some exercise this morning is Cook, who is just howling away and shagging someone whose face we — and he — can’t see.

In the bedroom next door, Emily wakes up in that particular way one does when one doesn’t remember going to bed the night before, with that genetically-encoded System Recovery that supersedes all other programs, like: awake? Well, that’s good. Have feeling in fingers, toes and lips? Also good. In a bed and not using the toilet as a pillow? Even better. Then there’s the moment of inescapable truth where you work up the nerve to move your head and you either vomit, or your brain erupts like a supernova, or … nothing. And if nothing, then you’re almost always in the clear — though it’s not a bad idea to check your bank balance to see if you dropped 80 quid on FarmVille cash in the middle of the night.

Or, you know, bedded a Giant not-Naomi.

Did you gasp? Did you say, “Emily Fitch!” right out loud to the TV, because I did.

Wait, though — I meant to say this last week but I was still having nightmares about baseball bats and Demon Headmasters. I’ve gotten a fair bit of hate mail about Mandy, about who am I to judge another person’s body type and anyway don’t I know that Kathryn Prescott is hobbit-sized and so anyone would appear enormous standing next to her?

Just to clarify: I was not mocking Mandy — or the actress who plays her — for being a giant. I was mocking her because she is not Naomi. Also, I am five feet, ten inches tall and it’s the very best thing about me, and if Emily is a hobbit and Mandy is a giant, then I am a troll. (“Anyone can speak Troll. All you have to do is point and grunt.” – Fred Weasley, RIP w/Freddie McClair)

Emily gets out of bed and surveys her clothing situation. Verdict: scantily clad, but not totally starkers. She stares at Mandy for a minute and then brings her hand up to her face and … sniffs her fingers. Hilarious. That is hilarious.

Naomi calls out that she’s back from the grocers and Emily literally shouts back, “No!” Like, “No, you’re not!” and starts swearing and pacing around in a circle, like she’s maybe looking for a trap door she never noticed before. She snaps to attention as Naomi comes bounding in the room telling Emily that she’s been out to get supplies for breakfast, and also Heat. She squeals it: “I got Heat!” which is the funniest thing because you Brits have the most excellent relationship with your gossip rags.

I mean, Americans like gossip rags, of course, but it’s all very pedestrian: “Two drunk celebs with no redeeming value whatsoever kissed in front of whatever L.A. nighclub and also probably some naughty bits got flashed.”

But in Britain, publishing gossip is an art. One Heat headline is better than a hundred full-on US Weeklys. I will never forget the first time someone handed me a copy, outside of Bayswater Tube station, right as I was about to hop on the train. I think I made the full loop on the Circle Line twice before I realized what I was doing. British gossip mags and papers are not just hook-ups and break-ups; they’re celebrities, royalty, fashion, sex, celebrities and royalty having fashionable sex, incomprehensible political jargon, and a laundry list of ways every other nation in the EU is inferior to Britain. They’re magic, is what they are.